The only thing worse than Trump's attack on a journalist is its timing
Trump has called the press the ‘enemy of the people’, but mocking the assault of a journalist after Khashoggi’s disappearance is dangerous new territory
The danger of Donald Trump has always been his ability to blizzard your brain with indignities and insanities. There are too many controversies to recall, too many outrages, and like any good strongman wannabe, Trump has so shifted expectations that we can forget just how outrageous and dangerous he remains.
On Thursday night, Trump celebrated the Republican congressman, Greg Gianforte, who body-slammed a Guardian reporter in 2017. Gianforte was asked a question about healthcare and didn’t like it. He attacked the journalist, Ben Jacobs, and won the Montana special election anyway.
Trump was back in Montana to rally for Gianforte and the Republicans. “Any guy that can do a body slam... he’s my guy,” Trump said to cheers and laughter. The president then mimicked the violent move.
Trump has called the press the “enemy of the people” and viciously attacked just about any report critical of his administration. He has successfully guaranteed a significant portion of the country, his base, will disregard any watchdog journalism produced about his administration. The only legitimate news comes from his mouth or a sycophantic outlet—he can effectively manufacture reality at will for a large share of Republican voters in this country.
That is why outrage over the alleged murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist and author, has been so one-sided. The evidence is overwhelming that Khashoggi’s death was orchestrated by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a Trump ally. Trump has refused to condemn Saudi Arabia and conservative Republicans have already begun a whisper campaign to smear Khashoggi’s record as a means to provide cover for Trump.
This should horrify any American of any ideological stripe. As should America’s long-standing tolerance of Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, which certainly predate Trump. The brutal autocracy has been a friend to past presidential administrations and it is worth noting Trump is simply continuing a tradition of American hypocrisy abroad.
The difference between Trump and past presidents is his systematic, frontal assault on free media and repeated attempts to delegitimize the media’s role in a democratic society. The irony is bitter, and should never be overlooked—Trump’s rise to power was aided and abetted by credulous media outlets who gave his campaign near unlimited early television coverage. Before then, when Trump was a celebrity real estate developer and New York con artist, it was tabloid print media desperate for front page fodder which always got it from dapper Donald. (The New York Times, in writing one of the first-ever fawning profiles of Trump, helped manufacture the myth, too.)
Trump is a product of the thing he wishes to destroy. That irony is probably lost on him, not that it matters anyway. Reporters still favor-trading for access to the White House or laboring under the illusion Trump is really not so bad because Sarah Huckabee Sanders, behind the scenes at least, can be courteous to certain White House reporters should understand what is really at stake: the media has become a hate object for millions of people.
What is to be done? That is the haunting question with no good answer. Trump has accelerated a trend decades in the making and brought it here, to its horrid apotheosis. A president can condone violence against the press. He can celebrate it. He can get away with it.
The mainstream media is imperfect. News organizations have, at times, failed the public, and individual reporters make mistakes. There are no heroes here.
But Trump long ago eradicated such distinctions, such nuance. Anyone who attempts to question his movement deserves censure and violence. Anyone who stands against him should be crushed.
This is where we are. Trump has not won yet. The press is still doing its job and journalists are reporting with relative freedom. The danger is not in the Trump White House seizing the presses or jailing any Washington Post reporter who writes a negative word about him.
The danger is in what’s already happening—Americans losing any semblance of respect for what a free press means in this country, Americans disregarding fact-based reporting. Trump is doing damage, every day. We can only hope it doesn’t get worse.
